Good Shepherd Sunday - Homily Fr. Raymond

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond . . .
To: . . .
Sent: Sunday, 21 April 2013, 10:16
Subject: Good Shepherd Sunday

Good Shepherd Sunday

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  

It is a day when we focus on the Church’s need for vocations; Vocations to continue the mission of Christ, the mission of the Good Shepherd in his Church.

The word vocation implies two people: God who calls and the one whom he calls; God  who calls and the one whom He wants to respond to his call.  To understand the meaning of the word “Vocation” in its religious sense we would do well to think first about its meaning in general.  There are many senses in which we can use the word “Vocation” when we consider our lives as a whole.  First there is the fundamental common basic vocation we all have to life and existence.  It is so important to pause for a moment to realise ourselves as all having this fundamental “Vocation”.  We didn’t just come into existence, we were called into existence.  And our lives on this earth, and indeed in heaven hereafter, are nothing but our acknowledgement of and response to this call; our response to this choice God made to call us into existence.  The Psalmist puts it very neatly when he sings “I thank you, Lord, for the wonder of my being.”

Each of us is like a song, a melody; a song sung by our creator into the universe.  God doesn’t just  create us and set us down and go off and do something else.  Just as the song ceases as soon as the singer stops singing, so would we cease to exist if God forgot us for an instant.  But then, after this first basic “Vocation” to our existence there come other vocations from God, other ‘movements’ in the great symphony of life.  These “Vocations” are many and varied.  One of the most basic and primary ones is, of course, the “Vocation” to marriage and family.  In our society, the couple may think that they alone have chosen each other, but Jesus tells us differently: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”  Even though they don’t realise it or acknowledge it, it is God who has called them to be together. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder." In that understanding, every marriage is an arranged marriage, arranged by the Creator himself; and even if one or other of the parties to the marriage is unfaithful to it, God is always faithful to it.  It is always His Marriage and God is such a jealous God.

Much more obviously a vocation from God, however, is the call to the priesthood or the religious life.  This vocation, this call, is a call to dedicate one’s life in a special and exclusive way, not to another human person, but to the knowledge and love and service of God and his Church.

This is the meaning of the word “Vocation” which we are considering today. It is a word which speaks of the very life blood of the Church.  It is a fundamental factor in her very existence.  Without it She cannot survive, hence the great importance of prayer for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life in the Church.